Tag: smilelondon

Yesterday I was lucky enough to attend the Simply Communicate event Smile London and interview some of the speakers, panellists and attendees via a live feed on Facebook during the breaks – thanks to all those at home that tuned in! This is the larger event from the team at Simply Communicate with the Expo taking place earlier in the year.

The day was filled with interviews on stage and round tables with some interesting case studies that covered the use of robotics, analytics and launch campaigns. I have attended the Smile events for a number of years and it was interesting to hear some themes today that made me think we need to start moving the conversation forward:

Adoption is not a measure of success
The use of the word ‘adoption’ was a big topic for discussion both in the room and on Twitter – especially when we are hearing stats like ‘Workplace has over 70% adoption’. But adoption does but not tell us about the engagement in the platform. It doesn’t tell us what people are doing and how they are using the platform – understanding how many people have claimed an account is not the same as people contributing to the discussion. It’s time to have a better conversation about engagement online and what good really looks like. I was pleased that when I interviewed Nick Crawford on the topic he was able to clarify that the percentage of active users was equally strong.

Integration is the future
There is no one platform for success anymore and I think chasing one to do everything is a hard ask. We heard case studies that showed how Facebook Workplace is integrating with other platforms and how some companies are turning off elements of Microsoft’s suite to enable better conversations and collaboration. There is no one size fits all and there is no silver bullet – there never has been. It takes time to understand your audience, your culture and how you want to shape it and then find the right mix of tools to meet those needs.

Culture and making time for each other should be on your radar
There was little talk about the importance of culture and relationships in the workplace to enable conversations and collaboration. Relationships across departments were described as battles in some questions to the presenters – why are comms and IT battling for the same thing? Working together, making time to talk and discuss the goals and visions for each department is the only way we can succeed when it comes to creating a digital workplace – or in fact a sustainable communications strategy.

Relax or rule?
The panel debate around governance was interesting – mainly because I think the definition of governance is different for different people. I was baffled to hear one of the panellist suggest that creating a naming convention was basically impossible. Naming conventions contribute to that cultural element and the tone of voice of the organisation. They help employees find what they are looking for online and ensure they have the right piece of information from a trusted source – I was glad to see Sharon O’Dea on the panel talking some sense about all this!

The budget needs to be split
It was great to hear from the team at Pandora that they split the budget into thirds; one on the platform, one on marketing and the final third on training. This is so rare to hear and so very important. I know from my own experience as a global head of comms that I only managed to get buy-in to an ESN by flying to see the team, running workshops on what they needed help with and then tailoring everything to them. Again, this is about investing time rather than money – it’s just the cost of travel and this shouldn’t be seen as a blocker.

We are not Ninjas!
A new term for me was Digital Ninjas. This is the new word for change agents or comms champions and I can’t help but think this is a little odd. A Ninja, by definition, is a covert agent linked to sabotage and assassination – that’s not the right connotation for someone trying to help a business engage in a new communications channel / cultural change with a digital workplace agenda.

We need to have clear definitions
Earlier this month I hosted the CIPR Inside conference where we published the findings of our research into the strategic value of internal communication. One of the things we highlighted was the need to distinguish between internal communication and employee engagement. Yesterday, I fear the same is true when it comes to talking about digital workplace, intranets, social media, ESN – I heard all of these used interchangeably throughout the day which just makes it harder to have those meaningful conversations with business leaders.

There were some thought-provoking debates throughout the day – thank you to all the presenters, those that came for an interview and the team at Simply for organising it all!

Today I attended my second, albeit not consecutively, simply communicate SMiLE event in London. The format was much the same as before but my reasons for attending very different. Now four months into the new role I need to learn more about Office 365 so I was on the hunt to learn more.

There were some great sessions throughout the day that prompted some food for thought and some great research shared from both Lecko and People Lab about using Enterprise Social Networks (ESNs) inside our businesses. Thank you to Wedge for the table session on news and the intranet – the most valuable part of my day.

The biggest thing I left with today was a sense of the need to stop. There are new tools entering this marketplace every year, if not every month. The current new tool is Facebook Workplace and while it was great to hear more about it – I’m already on my journey with Microsoft so for me, the session was interesting but not practical for application. And now I feel bad. Now I feel like I am letting my business down by not having the latest and greatest tool out there – and this isn’t the case.

With the constant new tools entering the space we are bombarded with messages about why one is better than the other and how you should have this or that technology because it is more in line with how we communicate today – but the truth is, it is a big investment. It is a big investment of time and money to launch and community manage an ESN. The companies that built them years ago – IBM, Microsoft – are constantly evolving them and if we have bought them, we need to nurture that relationship and learn together to adapt to how people change in the way they communicate.

Throwing out one tool for another won’t solve our problems. Yes we probably need to be quicker at adapting to change and integrating these platforms with others, and we also need to make sure our comms teams have the skills to evolve with the needs of the people and the functionality the tools can bring. But we can do all this if we work together.

I had some brilliant conversations today, learnt a vast amount about what I need to do for success in my organisation and got myself back into reality in knowing that I’m on the right track. But my ask for the future of any event about social media inside organisations is this:

Tell us how others have adapted and grown something they invested in years ago

Tell us how the strategy for collaboration has been a long-term wow – to quote intranetizen – and not a big bang launch

Understand where the audience is on the journey – some having nothing and others have had office 365 for the last few years and need to improve it

Tell us how to drive adoption, measure success and work with what we have to make it amazing

Everyone’s journey is different but we are all on one. I don’t want to feel like I’m behind the curve because I don’t have the latest and greatest – I want to feel proud of the tool I have, how it has grown, developed and adapted to the needs of my internal customers and I want my peers to celebrate (and when needed commiserate) with me. There was an audible laugh in the room when IBM Connections came up – I wonder how many people in the room have ever used it or know that it has been voted the number 1 platform for 5 years, ahead of SharePoint, for functionality. I know because I used it for years and while adoption remains a challenge – when people can see what it can do, they are blown away.

Let’s stop being trendy and get back to being functional – helping our colleagues collaborate and our businesses be more efficient – that is, after all, the goal (for me anyway).

I attended my first SMiLE London event yesterday hosted by the lovely team at Simply Communicate. In the summer of 2012 we launched an online tool to allow collaboration, de-centralised comms and people directories. It wouldn’t be a lie to say we have struggled with adoption ever since. It is our only online platform and while it has many benefits, when it comes to cutting through the noise and being able to see what you need to see to do your job it is not so good. So here I was, keen to understand whether my challenges were different or whether we are all in the same boat….

State of the nation

It was no surprise to learn that those attending the event were mainly using Sharepoint and Yammer as social tools – this was mirrored by the presentations throughout the day – and it was encouraging to see that the thing we are all most worried about is engagement and adoption. One of the main reasons people cited as being their reason for implementing a social tool was to allow people to find other people to share skills.

I’m not alone in the challenge around people tagging and categorising their content as well as making sure that content is kept up to date when people leave. While all that is not shared is lost, having out of date content on a site that can’t be removed or updated is a huge risk for the business. One of the biggest benefits to the social tool is when you on board new people into the organisation. It makes it quicker and easier for them to understand the business and what they need to know to succeed.

Time to play a game

The use of gamification was high with Pearson working with Bunchball to deliver a programme that rewarded behaviour linked to content and how the community responded to what was being shared. I loved this concept as so often we put gamification in place to reward what people do which, for me, doesn’t drive adoption. There were some general assumptions made about ganification and the fact that people like a ‘digital trophy cabinet’ but for me, we have to remember that when it comes to gamifying our content, there are very different gamer profiles that should be considered.

Getting real

When it comes to the senior leaders and getting them engaged it was great to hear we are starting to accept that social isn’t for everyone. If the CEO isn’t keen on comms then they aren’t going to be blogging every week – and that’s ok. Social shouldn’t be a chore, it should be part of how you work or socialise.

I learnt about red, yellow and green dots as ways to categorise people – the greens are totally engaged and the reds are completely disengaged. Don’t spend time on the reds – not adopting the channel becomes part of who they are and it will take you too long and cost too much to try and change their minds. You will never get 100% adoption.

Current trends and where next

The use of mobile came up a few times. Interesting results from one speaker that showed Iphone as the most used handset with Blackberry nowhere to be seen. What was really clear was that people don’t’ contribute content from their mobile – it’s where they receive it. This is an interesting point given all the user generated content we are starting to filter through the comms space.

Middle managers got a real bashing about their involvement in the adoption of these channels – in fact some suggest that middle managers are the biggest blocker when it comes to communication in general. It was suggested that last year we worried about business risk and trust, this year it is the middle managers that we are looking at.

Build it and they will come only works for arks – to quote Dana Leeson. This is something to truly consider when driving adoption. We are all still using email and this is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future so there was talk of integrating the social tools with email – something I’m pleased is already on our radar.

Making sure the content is relevant was another trend in the day. For me this is the same for any channel. Visibility of that content was the real challenge with some social tools –cutting through that noise can be a real challenge.

Ideas for engagement and adoption

As the arc comment suggests – thinking they will just come on board doesn’t work for social tools. There were some great ideas to engage teams and get real adoption. The badges mentioned earlier was one and the ‘Collaboration in Action Awards’ cited by one presenter certainly generated a small murmur in the room.

Moving away from ‘no email day’ to ‘beyond email day’ that allows you to show off other tools available was another idea that got heads down and scribbling/tweeting. A lovely idea to get people learning about the options available – if they don’t know what it can do, how do they know it can make a difference.

Engaging the mobile worker

Mobile workers can, apparently, be categorised into four different types: information, task, wannabe, mavericks. We rely on them using their own devices to access the content and this links us to Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) – something I think we are all still unsure about. The reliance on middle managers and the traditional cascade is still very much here. We still have no way of knowing what our mobile workers have been told, and when they were told. Do social tools give us the ability to change that?

As always, some key phrases from the day that I enjoyed:

Communities and content should as open as possible and restricted as necessary

Are we trying to communicate to or engage with those no desk based?

This is not an ark – they won’t just come when we build it

Think about audience first and channel second

Whatever you provide to a mobile workforce will be appreciated. You are starting with nothing

Collaborative knowledge

The vision for sharing is to save time

Final thoughts

If you bring social tools into the business you have to consider what they deliver for the audience. I loved the idea of using Chatter or something similar to support a leadership event but when someone asked what this adds to those there it did make me wonder.

For adoption and engagement to truly work you need communications, training and the business owner to be completely aligned. I often feel that our training team are left out of things when they could add so much value!

I was surprised at what appeared to be a lack of consideration for content. There were lots of tools used but this often left the content all over the place – how does that help the user when , for me, they should have one place to go for everything.

Sorry for the long post – lots to cover from the day! Needless to say I’m already signing up as a subscriber to the SMiLE portfolio and will definitely be back for the next event!